Images of people flooding the tunnels, hungry for any food they could find, or for warmth, or shelter, filled my mind. I could imagine my own people’s desperate struggle to retain their comfortable home as humans sought any respite from the ensuing chaos above. I feared for them, and for all who lived off the grid. In having sought to be separate from those who relied on the CGG AI, they would be the first targets of those who had been betrayed by the same.
My own fears would be more fully realized the closer we got to Helsinki. In the three days previous to arriving at the city limits, we came across more than a few frozen bodies. Some had been the victims of violence, their naked bodies obviously looted for their possessions and their warm clothing. Others may have been the offenders, having lost their way in a white out and frozen to death before they could find suitable shelter.
Our own plight would have been no different without Eamon to show us the caves and hiding places in the wild that allowed us to at least take a few hours respite from the cold, or at least the wind. Along the way, Eamon did his best to obscure the tracks left by the Snowcat, his apprehension growing with each step.
Smoke rose from somewhere within the snow covered buildings of Helsinki that lined the horizon as we made our way along the main road. We decided to keep our distance from the road after finding an archaic automobile, riddled with gunfire, the occupants left to bleed to death in the cold. The trunk had been pried open, the theft of the contents being the motive for the attack.
A day later, we walked into Helsinki via an empty ditch normally reserved for excess run off from rain. We reached the city proper and ascended to the street level to find that the chaos had been mostly covered over by fresh snow. A few fires still smoldered, but the streets were mostly empty, at least as far as we could see.
“Death,” Eamon said, sniffing the air.
Silverstein looked around puzzled for a moment as Eamon approached what appeared to be a pile of snow at the roadside. He brushed the snow away to reveal a frost covered man wearing a light coat and a hat. He looked to have fallen asleep there, his eyes still closed, when the cold took him. Taylor averted her gaze and walked around behind Silverstein to look in the opposite direction.
“Does Helsinki have places of shelter or private residences that are off the grid? Places where people could go?” Silverstein asked.
“Yes, but not that would support such a large displaced population. Then there are all the people that are probably trapped inside the buildings, having ignored the eviction protocols,” Eamon said, trying to look through a tinted window. “They’ll run out of water or food pretty quickly if they haven’t already.”
“We could break them out,” Taylor said as she picked up a rock.
“Most of the buildings in central Helsinki were designed to resist terrorist attacks. If the shutdown occurred outside of protocols, which sounds likely, even pulling a fire release lever on a door or window wouldn’t get you out,” mused Eamon.
“Doubly the case when the buildings lose power,” Silverstein observed.
“If no one can get into work or start up their work vehicle at Fortum Regional Power, that won’t take too long. Especially with the snow we’ve been getting,” Eamon added.
“It seems absolutely insane that these buildings would be that secure. There has to be a way to get into them, maybe from below?” Silverstein remarked, his irritation at the situation becoming more evident.
“Remember history? The old railroad barons, building the lines by the mile, and taking the government for a ride beyond the roundabout rail route? A lot of these buildings were built beyond code and far too quickly to not only meet compliance but to qualify for other incentives,” Eamon said pulling out his satellite mobile.
“What if the government contracts to build all these buildings was part of the conspiracy behind the shut down?” Taylor asked. “It’s something we’ve already considered to some degree. I’m starting to think it might be a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the bigger picture we can’t see yet.”
Silverstein was struck dumb for a moment, then looked to Eamon.
“What are you guys going on about? This is probably just a computer glitch or something,” Eamon said, checking his mobile.
“You should let him go. He doesn’t need to hear this and there’s no jail, yeah?” Silverstein said pointing to the bandit Eamon had in custody.
Eamon seemed to resist the notion at first, but took the handcuffs off the bandit and sent him running. We watched him jog toward the highway for a minute or two before turning back toward our destination. Taylor eventually broke the awkward silence.
“It isn’t a glitch,” Taylor stated sadly, once the bandit was well out of earshot.
As we walked, she related to Eamon the whole story. She told him about Vance Uroboros, the Shut Down conspiracy, about Dr. Madmar and the server farm. She told him about her own attempts to foment the chaos we were walking through and why there were thousands of dead laying in the streets of Helsinki and probably every other major metropolitan city in the world.
“That means this thing is global!” Eamon exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were mixed up in all this.”
“Yeah, but you don’t need to be. This isn’t your problem, and once we figure out how to get out of here, it’ll be our problem alone. Our burden,” Silverstein replied.
“Are you really a terrestrial AI?” Eamon asked, while looking at Taylor.
“Yes,” Taylor replied.
“I’ve never even heard of such a thing, but I suppose if they’ve got tailored life forms like myself, why not?” Eamon remarked. “If we find a building with power, do think you can open it?”
“I don’t know. Possibly, we need to try to find a way to help Ezra first,” Taylor said, putting her hand on my shoulder.
“Agreed,” Eamon replied, clumsily tapping the touch screen on his mobile. “I’m going to have my fellow officers meet us at the hospital. Hopefully there are still satellites in orbit.”
By that point, I’d started to feel more than ill. I felt something reaching out to me from the beyond. I feared that if I fell asleep I wouldn’t wake up. It had grown difficult to breathe and I spent most of my time just trying to sit upright in the sled as Silverstein pulled it along the empty urban streets of Helsinki.
Taylor walked along beside me, babbling on about how she wished the shopping structures weren’t locked down and what a nice thing it would be to have a hot cocoa. She was doing her best to cheer me up, even though I could sense she carried her own profound sorrow. I was the lucky one in that I had no idea why this depression was killing me. I bore no grudge against the terrible loneliness that had for days now began to strangle the life out of me.
With some frequency, Silverstein would stub his toe while treading through the snow behind Eamon. He declined to look down and see what it was, and I couldn’t help but envision what lay beneath the snow and how terrible the spring thaw would be. The personal epiphany I’d felt back in the woods seemed so far away now. I couldn’t help but mourn the passing of those moments, never to be experienced again.
At last, we reached what appeared to be a hospital. It was huge, and heavily fortified with a bomb resistant exterior composed of steel, concrete, and ballistic glass. Inside, people could be dimly seen but their faces were obscured by the tinted glass all around the ground floor. Eamon walked up to the entrance where there appeared to be several failed attempts to gain access. Someone had even swung a parking meter at the front glass, marring it slightly.
“I was only able to raise one other officer on the old auxiliary public. Should be here after a bit,” Eamon said, pressing one of his great paws on the door.
People gathered on the inside near the door, probably hoping we were the aid they’d waited days for. Taylor lifted the cover on the emergency access pad. Someone ha
d already undone the screws and the glass front of the access pad dropped out and hung by a few wires. Grasping the glass cover carefully, Taylor pressed it back into place and closed her eyes.
The pad lit up, without her even attempting a code. The buttons began to blink furiously as she attempted to isolate the access code. Eamon could only stand there and marvel at her ability to manipulate a device remotely with her thoughts.
“It won’t accept any established user access codes,” Taylor stated, her eyes remaining closed.
“Makes sense if the whole building has been toggled over to be repossessed,” Silverstein remarked, turning a worried gaze toward me.
Taylor pulled out her own mobile and let her fingers glide across the touch screen for several moments. She looked up and down the road, her eyes coming to rest on a large commercial ground transport that had locked down in mid-delivery of its goods.
“I’m not carrying enough wattage to brute force a system locked down by the CGG AI. I need a large battery or two to draw from.” Taylor’s voice was calm.
I stood as best as I could and walked over to one of the commercial ground transports languishing beneath a layer of snow. The driver had been trapped inside, and scuff marks marred the interior of the driver’s side window. The huge vehicle designed to repel hijackers and pirates in more dangerous countries turned into tombs in this somewhat safer country in the absence of the CGG AI’s blessing.
Eamon grabbed the front of the grill and pulled with all his might until the hood latch could be seen. I threaded my slender hand in and unhooked it, allowing the hood to slowly ascend, pushing snow back to the windshield and onto the ground at our feet. He held me up so I could use my clawed hands to unhook wires and contact strips so we could get at the battery. Once it was free, Eamon lifted the large black block out of the vehicle’s engine compartment.
We trotted back over and set the battery down in front of Taylor triumphantly. I had no idea how she intended to make use of the battery until I saw the interior of her multicolored coat drawn back. It had a steel mesh woven into the inside and several electrical leads she could use to garner contact with a power source and her own skin.
“Won’t the stuffed animal skins melt from the heat?” Silverstein asked, somewhat stunned at the contraption.
“My own clothes would burn sooner,” Taylor said smiling. “They started making stuffed animals heat resistant, nearly fire proof, about fifty years ago.”
“Ah, that’d be why. I read one of those war correspondence articles on my phone last year, and it had pictures. In the Chinese civil war ten years ago, it seemed like whenever they would post pictures of a destroyed village or town, there would be stuffed animals that survived, laying in the wreckage,” Eamon said.
“If only a child’s joy could persist the calamity likely to follow,” Silverstein added.
We all averted our eyes and turned our backs to Taylor creating a makeshift dressing room. There was probably no one to watch, but it at least shielded her from the wind as she slipped out of her clothes and back into her multicolored fuzzy-snuzzy coat. Draping the lip of the coat over the leads on the battery she immediately began to pull current from it.
Her hair and eyes began to glow brightly with an eerie luminescence, motes and tiny sparks of electricity leapt from her fingertips. She brought her hand within an inch of the control panel on the building making every button glow brightly as she began attempting to force the door controls to respond. I can only guess at what she was doing, but she gave off considerable and, considering the circumstances, welcome heat.
The doors shuddered as if she’d reached through and grabbed the program that controlled them by the neck. Moments later they slowly dithered back and forth parting only an inch or two. Taylor closed her eyes, seeming to really concentrate until the door obeyed, sliding to one side and locking into place, the small thin indicator light above them turning from red to green.
A cheer went up from inside and Taylor breathed a sigh of relief, white smoke escaping from her nose and mouth. Silverstein rushed to catch her as she stumbled and fell. He quickly pulled her coat off the battery and looked into her eyes. I staggered over as best as I could as Eamon stood between us and the crowd that ran cheering out into the street.
“Are you okay?” Silverstein asked her.
“Did I do it?”
Silverstein and I nodded as he held her up to see all the people able to finally go outside and breathe fresh air after days of being trapped inside. Some looked a little worse for wear, but they all had expressions of supreme relief, if not joy. I could see a modicum of the sadness Taylor had been feeling drift away with the steam coming off of her as she melted the snow around her. It almost looked like she was making a snow angel as she used the snow to dissipate the heat she built up carrying a higher than normal amount of wattage for the task.
The people in the hospital wouldn’t have disputed my observation as they began battering Eamon with questions.
“Please stay near the hospital and don’t go wandering off. This is probably the only shelter for miles now that people can get in and out of. Depending on how Miss Taylor feels, we might open more buildings. Please remain calm and orderly, thank you,” Eamon said.
I sat down, the whole ordeal had exhausted me. I was relieved that Taylor hadn’t hurt herself. After seeing her almost die in the server farm, I felt highly protective of her, something that seemed to bolster me in the midst of my loneliness. My respite was not to last as Eamon picked me up and set me on the edge of his arm as we walked into the hospital.
“You, are you a doctor?” Eamon bellowed, pointing at a man in a white coat.
“Yes, I am. Thank you for getting us out of here. We were starting to run out of food,” the man said.
“I’m afraid that danger hasn’t been averted. We’ll need to get access to a warehouse, but I think that’ll be possible after our, um... forcible entry agent has a chance to catch her breath,” Eamon said after a moment to think.
The man’s face went limp for a moment.
“Please, look at my friend here. He’s sick,” Eamon said gesturing to me.
“Hi, I’m Ezra,” I said meekly.
“I’m Dr. Jeffrey Labs. Let’s see if we can’t find a room that still has power.”
Dr. Labs was a younger human, maybe in his mid-thirties. He sported a beard I was certain he grew to give himself the appearance of wisdom as he would have seemed painfully young for a doctor otherwise. In spite of that fact, he seemed highly skilled, something the community would probably need if it were to survive the coming weeks.
The doctor did much of the same the other doctor did but took a scan of my body because he had the proper equipment. Using the emergency power still active in the examination room, he put the scans up on a display and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. Eamon peered in from the observation window, too large to fit in the room with us.
“Drone physiology isn’t that far removed from humans, as we were the basis for your tailored genetic code. You have several special organs that were grown to help you adapt to hostile environments, see in low light conditions, hold your breath longer, withstand pressure, and so forth,” Dr. Labs explained.
“How do you know all this? It’s not exactly standard knowledge from what I understand,” I said, somewhat suspicious of him.
“I served in the Orbital Navy during the colony incident on Mars. I treated a lot of Type One Drones like you. I’ve never seen a pygmy before, though. You aren’t that different from your larger counterparts, but because of your increased physical strength, you don’t have the same tolerance to hunger and thirst the larger Drones do. That level of physical strength requires more food and water than the norm. How long have you been combat active, and have you been eating enough?” Dr. Labs said pricking me with a child’s sized needle for an
analysis of my blood.
Silverstein and Taylor came into the room, laughing as if they’d just heard a joke. Taylor’s hair was back to cool greens and blues, and she seemed like her old self. I looked up at them mournfully, feeling somewhat foolish.
“What’s wrong with Ezra?” Taylor asked the doctor, the mirth quickly draining from her voice.
“He has a form of diabetes, not dissimilar from the sort that afflict humans,” Dr. Labs replied. “He needs to eat relative to what a normal human does or his blood sugar crashes and he gets like this. Because of his increased regenerative abilities, it would take a really long time for this to kill him, but it’s easily prevented by having 1-2 meals a day.” The doctor handed Taylor a print out from his handheld.
“We were pretty sure this had something to do with a mystic connection to his tribe and that he needed to find Drones to hang out with,” Silverstein said smiling, obviously relieved.
“No. If he were a Metasapient of a type that shared a hive mind or psychic link, then something like that might be the case. As far as I’m aware, there are no psychic Drone colonies,” Dr. Labs said winking at me.
Taylor looked as though she were going to say something, but thought better of it as several people had gathered outside to get a look at me. Eamon, satisfied I was being helped, turned and dispersed them with a growl.
Dr. Labs put me on an intravenous drip and gave me a slightly wilted apple from the hospital cafeteria. In thirty minutes or so, I felt like myself again, and in contrast, better than I had felt in days. The doctor then removed the drip, swabbed the wound the IV left behind, and waited for a moment as my flesh knitted back together. He offered me a lollipop.
“Put that in your pocket, just in case you need a little boost or have to skip a meal for some reason. I don’t recommend that you regularly have sugar straight up like this but it’ll work in a pinch,” he said.
Uroboros Saga Book 2 Page 5